Why do you use Twitter?

I just responded to a question on Inbound which I thought I’d share. I’ve been thinking about why I use Twitter for about as long as I’ve been using Twitter and I don’t have any real answers yet. That said, it’s a conversation worth having.

I use Twitter primarily for news and updates. I’ve done that pretty much since I joined Twitter in early 2007. It is still the best service for that. Facebook and other services seem to be a little too “heavy” when it comes to checking in for updates or developments I’m tracking. That Twitter is still relatively unfiltered, algorithmically speaking, means I can rely on it more than Facebook to give me a fairly uninterrupted perspective on what is going on in the world. Being close to a newsticker makes it pretty helpful for this stuff.

I don’t agree with using Twitter as a personal social network. It has always seemed like the digital equivalent of trying to have a private conversation in a crowded room. You just wind up shouting at each other while anyone and everyone listens in. I suppose DMs make this possible but none of my friends use DMs for personal chat. Twitter just doesn’t have that “personal chat thing” like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have. It also isn’t a particularly effective engagement tool either.

If Facebook could figure out how to give us chronological and unfiltered streams in a lightweight app interface, it could really give Twitter a run for its money. Facebook is heading in the opposite direction so that isn’t going to happen. I also think there is something to Joshua Topolsky’s article “The End of Twitter” but I don’t know what could replace it at this stage.

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